


Dustlight

by Cirth



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: White Knight (Comics), DCU
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Constipation, Jason Todd is Bad at Feelings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25632376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirth/pseuds/Cirth
Summary: Jason agrees to become a prison guard at Bruce's request.He doesn't expect to befriend Dick Grayson.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 37
Kudos: 164
Collections: JayDick Summer Exchange 2020





	Dustlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [epistemology](https://archiveofourown.org/users/epistemology/gifts).



> Thanks to empires for making this fic more bright and shiny.
> 
> Jason does not join the military in this fic. 
> 
> @ epi I hope you like it!

**Dustlight**

"You seem taller in tabloid photos."

Those had been Jason's introduction to Dick Grayson: pictures of him striding along a street sipping a latte. Grinning down at a blonde woman twice his age on his arm. Engrossed in his phone with a hand in his pocket while Bruce gave a speech outside WE. Jason would flip through the ones displayed at supermarket checkouts, trying to appear less interested than he was. He never bought them.

Dick looks up from his seat by the window. His eyes are red. Jason gets the feeling he only looked so tall in the tabloids because of the way he walked and stood and smiled. "Old story," he says. The sleeves of his faded Eddie Bauer T-shirt flap at his elbows, and the hem is all the way down to his thighs. It had a distinctively Bruce smell, back then. Jason wonders if it still does.

"They don't get that tall," says Jason. There is a plate of store-bought sugar cookies Dick has put on the coffee table and arranged not quite as neatly as Alfred used to. "Acrobats."

Instead of answering, Dick chews his lip and says, "Is he talking?"

 _Who_ , Jason almost asks, because he does not want to admit that he knows. "More than before, if you ask me." He tries to keep the bitterness from his voice. "You must have been good for him." The press would've had a field day with _that_ story. Bruce Wayne. Circus child. Prodigy. Murder.

Dick gives an incredulous laugh. "I didn't do anything for him," he says. Seems like Jason isn't the only one who's bitter. He feels a rush of satisfaction, and then guilt at the satisfaction. "You – your – I practically held him together with scotch tape. Not that it ever lasted long."

He's wrong. Jason had visited Bruce at Stonegate the day before – the first time in what felt like a century – and he was softer, tenderer, like Dick had taken a machete and pounded out his flintiness _._

"Tell him I miss him," Dick says. "I – " He starts twisting the edge of his T-shirt.

 _You can go visit and do that yourself_ , Jason thinks. "Will do."

"Is he – "

"He's fine." It irritates him, Dick's concern for Bruce, somehow.

"Yeah." More twisting. Eyes darting. His lashes are long and curved. When Jason was a child he used to daydream of delicately perfumed women with those kind of lashes. They'd have soft voices and soft powdery hands, and they'd never have come within two miles of the East Side. His own mother smelled of alcohol and sweat and her lashes were short, like someone had snipped them off before they could curl. "Yeah, 'course."

 _How did you ever survive?_ thinks Jason.

"Are you – I mean, would you like to stay here?" says Dick. "In the manor?"

Jason scoffs. "About as much as I want to be put through a meat grinder. I don't know how you can stay here. Alfred's dead, Bruce is in prison, what the hell are you doing. There's dust over everything." That's what he hates the most, the dust. Alfred used to whisk it away every morning with the same black-handled duster shaped like a frock.

The manor had always been always quiet. Now it is unnaturally still, even with both of them conversing.

Why had he thought it would be polite to come and say hi to his replacement? He should have stayed in his cramped little hotel room by the docks.

There is a note of annoyance in Dick's eyes, but it is gone quickly. Jason gets the feeling it's because he's tired – annoyance takes energy. "I'm not staying here," Dick says. "I have an apartment in Blüdhaven. I just wanted to welcome you," he gestures around him, "back home. See if you wanted anything. I was willing to stay a couple of days to help you get settled in."

Jason feels like he stumbled while going down a flight of stairs. "Right," he says gruffly. "Thanks."

He just wants to finish this damn job and go back to Rochester. He's not sure what he thought he'd get by coming here. Closure. Peace. Confirmation of...something.

Whatever it is, once he gets it, he can leave Gotham for good and he won't have to come within ten miles of any so-called superheroes. Not Nightwing. Not Batgirl.

Certainly not Batman.

* * *

There are lines wreathing Bruce's mouth and frost at his temples. He'd always looked older than he was, but Jason could never picture him going grey. Still, the image is settling in now, the second time around.

"So what was he like?" asks Jason, leaning against a wall and crossing his arms. "What is he like?" _Why is he so unlike me? Did you pick him because he is so unlike me?_

When Jason first saw him in Stonegate, Bruce had that same metallic look of justice in his eyes. As if he was serving justice by sitting in prison and talking to Jason. That look is tempered now.

"Oh," says Bruce, the way elderly people do, when they're digging around in thoughts they haven't touched in a while. He's sitting on a bench a few feet away from the bars, elbows on his knees. "He was – is – fearless. Effusive." He draws a breath. "Full of grace."

It's the way he says it, "grace", that tells Jason that Bruce is not talking about Dick's skill. He says it the way a priest would talk of mercy.

"He is," Bruce is saying, "too good. For me."

"He doesn't seem to think so."

Bruce grimaces, seeming pained. His hand curls and uncurls. "He is," he insists. He looks at Jason. "So are you."

Jason wants to laugh. He wants to fall against Bruce, wants Bruce to wrap his arms around him and ask How was your quiz and What’s going on at the reading club and How's a baseball game sound this weekend Jaylad.

Fuck.

 _Fuck_.

He can't wait for this whole thing to be over.

Bruce licks his cracked lips. "Can you do something for me?" he says. "If you're all right with it?"

 _How about you do something for me for once instead?_ Jason almost says. He can refuse Bruce. He can. The disappointment in Bruce's face alone would be worth it.

He nods, not trusting himself to speak. He had been looking forward to finishing his Huxley novel in his spare time, but now it seems he's going to be Bruce's personal errand boy. Except errand boys get paid.

"Please, just keep an eye on Dick. Not for long, just a few days. He – he gets...self destructive, when he's upset."

"Self destructive how?"

"He..." Bruce fidgets, looking at the floor. The little movements of his fingers are driving Jason crazy. "It isn't uncommon for him to step in the way of bullets, or work himself to exhaustion, or..." He rubs his forefingers and thumbs together and Jason wants to hit him. "He believes he deserves it. He won't say it, but he does believe that."

Jason looks at the wall and thinks of Dick in the Eddie Bauer T-shirt. Of the dust.

"I know this is a big favour, and I didn't want to pressure you," Bruce is saying. "But he does well, he does _better_ around people. Barbara is there, of course, but Dick is affectionate and he isn't in the best place right now, he needs more than one person, and – "

"I get it," says Jason, more curtly than he means to. Hearing Bruce ramble makes him profoundly uncomfortable. "I do." He sighs. "Fine, I'll get him to stay here a while and make sure he doesn't do anything idiotic. Don't expect me to sit there and build blanket forts with him, though."

* * *

"Why are you here? As in, Gotham?"

It is the bluntest thing Dick has said to him yet.

The past few days have been weird. Coltish. Surprising in their pleasantness. Jason comes to the manor in the morning after his run, or they meet halfway in the city for lunch. There are parts that stand out in his memory like photos at an exhibition: Minecraft and a crappy talk show and pad thai in greasy paper boxes at the kitchen island.

(Dick had been insistent about Minecraft. He'd pressed the console into Jason's hand and babbled about "creating entire _worlds_ , Jason" with a near manic look on his face. Jason found the game pointless but still felt compelled to keep at it, to his displeasure. They sat cross-legged on the carpet with a bowl of barbecue-flavoured chips and played till it was past dinnertime.)

Jason takes a bite of one of the cookies. It is not as good as Alfred's, not by far; you can barely call it a cookie. “The commissioner tracked me down.”

“You let her. You wanted to be here.” Dick tilts his head in a way that is disconcertingly owl-like. The afternoon light turns his brown eyes a shade of gold.

“I suppose I wanted to see Bruce. See if that made a difference to anything.” It just comes out; he had not meant to be honest. He must have been insane, travelling all this way to talk to a man who had almost gotten him killed when he was fifteen. "It's none of your business," he adds, and then feels childish, which is great.

Dick laughs, a bright, giggly thing that reminds Jason of champagne bubbles, and Jason flushes with embarrassment. "It's okay, Jay," he says, the nickname sliding easily off his tongue. "You won't catch cooties from talking about your feelings. Oh, by the way," he adds, holding up a finger. "There's a live performance of this cool jazz band at the Royale Room this Saturday. I think it might be up your alley."

"Is this your way of saying, 'We should try to get to know each other'?" Jason has no intentions of doing any such thing, even if his Spotify is chock full of jazz. "Because I'm not willing to take a chance on the cooties."

Dick shrugs. "Offer's open. I have two tickets and it's not Babs' thing, so it will be just you and me."

"I haven't said yes yet."

"So you will say yes?" Dick says, with a toothy smile. He probably charmed his way right through galas when he was a kid.

"No."

The performance is on the fifth floor of an ugly brutalist building near the city centre. Some people have decided to turn up in clothes (and jewellery) that might better suit one of Gotham's wealthy casinos.

"You could maybe look less like I'm leading you to the guillotine?" says Dick, as he locks his car in the parking lot. He's wearing dress pants that went out of style in the 60s and a white shirt with bright blue triangles all over it, but still manages to look soulful in a tragic Arthurian knight kind of way. Bastard.

Jason picks some lint off his jacket. "I don't see why I should," he says.

"You might make some kids cry. Then their parents will be embarrassed and have to lead them outside and miss twenty minutes of the show."

"They'd probably be thankful for that."

Dick laughs. "After this is over, we're sticking to Minecraft."

"Could we try something a little less infantile? Just a thought."

The Royale Room is an airy space with teakwood floors, a few scattered chairs and pompous black-and-white photos of the band on the walls. Lots of light, which is what makes it so expensive. It looks like a restaurant that was refitted to be a gallery. There are people weaving through the double doors leading to the balcony overlooking a busy main street. You can hear horns blaring ceaselessly, but that's not unusual in Gotham.

There's a boy, about fourteen, with gangly limbs and curly bronze hair, who is trying to wheedle a drink off the bartender at the small bar. Jason grimaces – he was the same, way back when, with the cigarettes. He only had to ask once or twice, from the guys he worked for, and there'd be a Marlboro or a Belmont or a cheaper brand in his hand. Once he'd been given a joint instead. _That_ had been memorable.

The bartender turns around and begins to fix something, and Jason is about to interfere, disbelief and anger rising in him – but then she turns back with a Coke float and says, "You'll like this better, kid."

"The name's Matt," the boy mutters, surly, and saunters off into the crowd.

Jason relaxes. Of course. This isn't Crime Alley. People don't go around giving alcohol to minors.

After snacks and a twenty-minute delay, the band finally steps onto the makeshift stage.

Dick orders a whiskey on the rocks and shoves it into Jason's hands with a "You look like a whiskey man", before getting a pink lemonade for himself. They stand by each other as the music begins.

"Teetotaler?" asks Jason, teasing. Dick had been on the nose about the whiskey. It's good, too, smooth, and brings a coil of warmth to Jason's belly.

Dick gives a shamefaced chuckle. "Getting drunk isn't my favourite thing in the world."

"Is that a control thing or a hangover thing?"

"Both."

"Have you even had one hangover in your life?"

"No, but I've heard the stories."

Jason realises he is grinning. It's easy, talking to Dick. It's easy standing next to him.

This is not what Jason had counted on. He pulls his eyes away from Dick and back to the stage, his grip tightening around his glass, and thinks, _This was a mistake_. As soon as the event is over, he is going to turn down Dick's inevitable offer of a ride back to his hotel and tell Bruce he can't keep an eye on his bird anymore.

But this is Gotham, and if there's one thing Gotham can do, it's surprise you in the most unpleasant of ways.

So of course halfway into the show two D-List goons wearing balaclavas and holding guns break in and demand everyone's jewellery and money. There's no speech, no buildup – just chaos and the sound of Jason's evening going to shit.

He and Dick are already on their feet.

Jason kicks the gun out of one of the men’s hands and knocks him out with a jab to the nose, the moves coming to him with distressing ease. He's not as polished as he was, but his body remembers. His body enjoys it.

That is information he will examine at a later date.

There's a woman on the balcony fumbling to take off her pearl necklace as the other goon yells at her to hurry up.

A kid – _Matt_ , Jason realises – is tugging on the goon’s sleeve, shrieking at him to not hurt his mother. The goon wrenches his arm to throw him off and Matt stumbles back, hits the balcony railing, and topples off with a wailing cry.

Jason can't breathe.

Someone sprints past him – Dick, it's Dick, there are triangles on his shirt – and jumps off after Matt. Without a grapple. He jumps off a fifth-floor balcony without a grapple in his fucking dress pants and Jason is so shocked he can't even feel worry.

He jams his fist into remaining goon's solar plexus, taking him out, and then scrambles to lean over the railing, his heart in his throat. Matt’s mother is screaming; someone is holding her back. Jason scans the area for any sign of Dick or the kid, hammering down panic when he doesn't immediately spot them.

And then his eyes land on Dick. He's on his ass on the sidewalk, apparently with a dislocated right shoulder, with Matt clinging to him. He's surrounded by a throng of people, one of them waving at the others to presumably give the two some air.

Jason's palms ache. He is gripping the stone balcony railing hard enough to bruise. The back of his shirt is damp with sweat.

The knowledge that Dick is a vigilante always slips away from him like water. There is something casual and easy about him that most others of his stock lack. Clark Kent might be an exception – but you never forget that Clark Kent is Superman.

By the time Jason reaches the ground floor, he's surprised he hasn't stumbled with how his legs are shaking.

Dick is sitting on a low folding stool, clutching his bad arm and gazing up at the balcony with a thoughtful, cool expression. It is as though he hadn't just thrown himself off a building with no idea if he'd survive it.

"My God, man, you could have died."

Dick blinks, as if the thought had not occurred to him, or as if it had, but he had not cared. There's a nasty cut on his left cheek. "Yes," he says. "That's part of the job."

Jason wants to cry. He wants to wrap his hands around Dick's neck. He wants to open Dick's skin like a curtain and step inside, to live there, to see if that searing brilliance is never-ending.

Dick's eyes are suddenly wide. "Shit, Jason, I'm – God, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I – "

"Stop," says Jason. He breathes. Breathes. Breathes. "Stop." He looks at Dick, who is still staring at him with that earnest, guilty expression, and thinks, _He is a calamity_.

Dick doesn't want to go in an ambulance, which Jason can understand given the man’s lifestyle. Jason keeps his eyes locked on the road as he drives Dick to the hospital. His leg jiggles. He forgets to use the blinker and ends up cussing out some poor fucker who didn't deserve it, and Dick slants him a funny look but says nothing.

At the hospital a doctor dresses Dick's shoulder and cheek and prescribes him pills and tells him what a brave and stupid thing he did. It's all over the news, the stunt by Dick Grayson, former Robin, current Nightwing, sometime Batman.

They walk out into the fading sunlight.

"Well," says Dick, scratching his eyebrow. "Heck of a first date, huh?"

Jason does not reply. He can leave Dick like this. Dick is an adult. He can arrange himself transport. "I'll drive you back to the manor."

"There’s really no need."

Jason reaches into his pocket, takes out the keys to Dick's hideous orange car. He should be paid to drive a car as hideous as that. "Be quiet," he says.

* * *

"Is there any tea in the pantry?" Jason asks as soon as they're through the front door. Some people are grumpy without their morning coffee. Jason is grumpy without his afternoon tea. (And fine, it's evening, but who cares.)

Dick blinks at him. "Um, yeah. There's some Earl Grey and Assam left."

"Praise be."

He makes two strong cups of Assam tea with milk and sugar, and then wishes he'd asked Dick if he even likes tea; Jason's only ever seen him drinking coffee. He sighs and puts the cups on a tray, grabs a packet of cookies, and goes up to Dick's room.

Dick looks up from his phone when Jason comes in after a knock. He's sitting up in bed. The Flying Graysons poster behind his head is peeling at the edges. "Babs is mad."

Jason sets the tray on the desk. "Because you jumped off a building?"

"We do it all the time!"

"With grapples, Dick." He hands Dick a cup, sits down on a chair and drinks his own tea, keeping his eyes on the poster, on _Le spectacle d'une vie!_ printed near the bottom. He had wanted to travel. That's what he'd told Bruce one morning, when he was high off a warm clean bed and adoption papers in a cloudy file. He babbled about Windermere and Edinburgh, about taking a boat through the canals of Venice. Eating Turkish delight and etli ekmek in Istanbul. Even walking barefoot on Florida's beaches – he had never seen the ocean.

Jason hasn't been to any of those places; he's not even been to the West Coast. He left Gotham and ended up in Rochester, living in an abandoned building, and then a nice house with foster parents who were trying not to be bitter about being childless. He didn't have the money to go to college even if he had the grades and the half scholarships. So after he turned eighteen, he became a gym trainer and volunteered at a soup kitchen in his spare time.

It wasn't the life he had wanted as Jason Wayne, but it was better than the one promised by Crime Alley.

And now he's back in Gotham, in Dick Grayson's room, which used to be a guest room with spotless cream walls and tidy bedding. Jason would know – he'd put a dung beetle in the bedsheets once. That particular guest had deserved it, for harassing Bruce about remaining unmarried.

He glances at Dick, who is on his third cookie and looks like he has a mind to take a fourth. Dick would like Windermere and Edinburgh. He'd love Venice. He'd be bowled over by Istanbul.

"How's the tea?" he says, like an idiot.

Dick blinks at him. He's just taken another bite. He chews and swallows and smiles and says it's great. The cut on his cheek stretches.

Jason looks away. He wants to make Dick another cup, so he can see him smile and say _It's great_ one more time. _Fuck, fuck, fuck_ , he thinks. He drains his tea and clutches his mug instead of putting it on the tray.

"Jason," says Dick, and his name in his mouth puts a funny skittery feeling in Jason's chest, "give me that." He holds Jason's wrist and pries the mug from Jason's hands.

Jason looks down at Dick's strong brown fingers with their chipped nails and wonders what they would feel like in his mouth.

Dick places the mug on the table and turns back. And then Dick is kissing him, and Jason is kissing him back, their tongues sliding along each other. Jason's hand is cupping his jaw, his neck, and he tastes tea and sugar cookies. His fingers brush the thick feathery hair at Dick's nape. Dick is beautiful, he's so beautiful in an implacable, alarming way, and Jason thinks, _Oh God_ in two different colours.

He wrenches away, horrified.

Dick's cheeks are flushed and his lips are glistening and his eyes are soft and confused. "Jason?"

"Fuck, I'm sorry," says Jason. "I shouldn't have – "

"Jay," says Dick, touching Jason's cheek. His hand is callused, rough, like the skin could rip delicate fabric, and then he's pulling Jason in again.

Jason allows Dick to kiss him once, twice, threefourfive times, God, he wants it to last, and then pulls back. Already he misses that taste. "I can't do this," he says quietly.

Dick looks at him questioningly, though not unkindly. "This?"

Jason makes a vague, useless gesture. He wants to say, _The vigilante thing. The proximity to it all. The worst decision of my life._ The prickly hotcold beatbeatbeat forehand or backhand little Robin of it all.

The words stick in his throat, too big.

Dick does not say anything. He raises a hand and tucks a strand of hair behind Jason's ear.

* * *

"You look troubled."

The back of Jason's head knocks against the wall. "You're the one sitting in a cell."

"And yet."

Jason clicks his tongue.

"It's Dick, isn't it?"

Jason looks sharply at Bruce. "How the hell – "

"He has that effect on people."

"What, exasperating? Maddening?" Jason knows he is not helping his own case.

"You seem flustered."

Jason can hear a hint of amusement in Bruce's voice, the _jackass_.

"I should never have come here," Jason says. _I wish I'd never met Bruce Wayne_ , he thinks, and then again, and again, and still the voice in his head tells him, _No you don't_.

He is tired of this prison. He is tired of the bile-coloured walls and cramped corridors and stench of ammonia.

Bruce sobers. "I'm sorry, Jason."

Jason sucks his teeth. Does Bruce think he's pathetic for getting attached to Dick in such a short period of time? For heeding Bruce's call? Worse, does he think he's _predictable_ in his softness? "Keep your apologies. Keep your son, too."

Bruce is silent for a beat. "Whatever choice you make, Jason," he says, "do what makes you happy."

* * *

Jason travels light. Always has.

He gets a sandwich and a coffee with two shots at the station. It's nothing like the coffee you get in Rochester. Here it almost inevitably tastes of wood shavings and you have to get fresh beans from dainty boutique stores if you want it to be halfway decent. He remembers when Bruce gave him his first sip of real coffee – not the instant junk his mother took when she woke up in the afternoon. It had made his toes curl, and Bruce had laughed and said, _Grew some hair on your chest, huh._

It's only when he looks at the clock that he realises his train is about to leave. He drains his coffee and heads towards the tracks. There's lots to do when he gets back to Rochester. Pay his house bills. Stock up the fridge. Feed the cat that yowls on the fire escape outside his window every night. Follow up on that fee one of the regulars at his gym missed, again.

Maybe he'll buy Minecraft.

He pauses, turns to glance around the station, at the garbage in the corners, at the stained walls and outdated movie posters.

He is about to step on the train when someone leaps onto the platform from the stairs, panting. The whistle blows. Jason remains fixed to the spot.

It's Dick, cheeks splotchy and sweat stains around his collar and armpits. One of his shoes is red and the other is white.

Jason stares at him. He stares till the train groans and heaves and starts chugging out of the station. His duffel bag is still in his hand. He waits for Dick to start yelling at him; he does deserve it for packing up his shit without telling anyone.

Dick looks at him, then at the bag. The turn of his mouth suggests he is about to apologise.

Jesus God, Jason is such an asshole. "Sorry" is inadequate, so he says nothing.

Dick walks up to him and glances at where the train was. "Babs told me you were leaving. I came to say bye," he says. His expression is understanding, tender, even.

It knocks Jason right over. He drops his bag on the ground. "Yeah." He feels defeated. Smaller. Content.

Dick gives a crooked smile. "Turns out I'm not saying it."

"Yeah."

"Where are you going to stay?"

Jason steps forward and presses his forehead against Dick's.


End file.
